Mental Model in Learning Chemical Bonding: A Preliminary Study

Chemical bonding is one of the subjects that involves the use of models, varying from simple ones to sophisticated abstract models possessing considerable mathematical complexity. It is a topic that students commonly find to be problematic, developing a wide range of alternative conceptions. The fac...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Procedia, social and behavioral sciences social and behavioral sciences, 2013-11, Vol.97, p.224-228
Main Authors: Halim, Noor Dayana Abd, Ali, Mohamad Bilal, Yahaya, Noraffandy, Said, Mohd Nihra Haruzuan Mohamad
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Chemical bond
macroscopic
mental model
microscopic
symbolic
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Summary:Chemical bonding is one of the subjects that involves the use of models, varying from simple ones to sophisticated abstract models possessing considerable mathematical complexity. It is a topic that students commonly find to be problematic, developing a wide range of alternative conceptions. The fact is that students cannot see how the atoms or elementary particles are held together, and how they interact and bond together to form a compound. Students’ misconceptions regarding these chemical bonding concepts begin when they live and operate in a macroscopic world and do not easily follow the shifts between macroscopic and microscopic levels. As a result, they tend to build a non-scientific mental model, which means that the idea is not aligned with scientific concepts. Therefore a preliminary study was conducted in order to investigate students’ mental model in this topic.
ISSN:1877-0428
1877-0428
DOI:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.10.226